On Tuesday, July 7th, 2015, I had the privilege of speaking for the DBA Fundamentals Virtual Chapter. Thanks to the 375 who attended and to all who will be watching the recording. While I can’t read the comments during my presentation (way too distracting), I did enjoy reading the questions and comments that were sent to me. Below you will find answers to the questions I was sent.

Questions Answered

1. Are you talking about SSRS 2016 or 2014?

I was presenting using SSRS 2012, but the demos and discussions applied to versions 2008 through 2014.

2. When should you use SSRS RDL vs. RDLC (Remote Definition Language Client-side)? Should you be able to invoke RDL from a web app (say web forms, asp.net) just as easily as RDLC?

The difference is RDLC reports will run on the client side. They don’t need to access the report server. RDL reports can be invoked on the client side, but they are rendered on the report server then delivered to the client. The RDLC reports would be part of an application and will take up client resources to generate.

3a. What is the difference between SSRS and Reports Application in Visual Studio 2010 (full version)?

3b.Why use SSDT over Visual Studio?

I liked both of these questions, and they have the same answer, so I wanted to group them together.

SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) files are generated in two applications, Report Builder and Visual Studio. Report Builder exists on the Reporting Server called Report Manager. Visual Studio is the Integrated development environment (IDE) that you write code in. Microsoft created (at least) two distributables for Visual Studio. The one that Application Developers, is only known as Visual Studio and the one that comes with SQL Server called SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT). The IDE is the same for both of them. When they co-exist on the same computer, they will be integrated. If you only have the SSDT version, then you can only create SSRS, SSIS, and SSAS projects. You can also download over project types for Visual Studio, such as PowerShell projects.

Note: For SQL Server 2008 it was called Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS). It was renamed to SSDT in version 2012.

3a. Is it better to use SSDT or Report Builder? I have been using Report Builder for my reports so far…

The answer to this depends on your comfort level for creating reports. Report Builder is meant for the power users in the business. SSDT is meant for developers. I’ve personally never used report builder, but that’s because I’ve been writing reports since before Report Builder was introduced. If you continue to create reports in Report Builder, then take a look into generating Report Parts. Those were introduced in SQL 2012 and are supposed to be “building blocks” to help create more complicated reports within Report Builder.

4. If you don’t have the source of the report can you get it back from the web

I am happy to tell you, yes! (and there was much rejoicing!)

In the Report Manager, pull down the menu to the right of the report and select download. You can also go into the properties of the report and see the download option in the toolbar for that report.

5. How did you link the two datasets?

The two datasets weren’t linked like you would see writing a JOIN statement. They were filtered using the same parameter. Datasets can’t be joined together within the report. There are a couple of functions introduced in SQL 2008 R2 that allow you to reference a single value from another data set, but that is as close as they have gotten.

6. How is the security configured within the data sources ? How can the double-hop authentication issue be avoided when accessing data from multiple servers ?

You have 4 different security options that you can use. Books online can tell you the details on each of them.

I personally use a SQL Server login, only used for reports to access the data. I then use windows authentication to access the reports themselves. Each data source can connect to a different server and even use a different SQL Server account.

I’m not sure I’m answering your question adequately since it can be read a couple of different ways. If you are looking for a solution to a double-hop authentication problem, then take a look at this article. I’ve faced this once, but it was about 5 years ago. The Double-Hop Authentication Problem

Send me an email if you still have questions on this topic.

7. I saw that you saved the password for the data source (during development). How can we ensure that it is encrypted when deployed to the server?

I would have to do some research to see how the password is sent during the publishing event, but I do know it is stored encrypted. In fact, the Connection String, UserName, and Password are all encrypted. Go into the ReportServer database and run this query: SELECT * FROM ReportServer.dbo.DataSource.

If you are still concerned about the Data Source during the publishing event, then you can create the data source manually in Report Manager. As long as the SSRS project has the property “OverwriteDataSources” set to false, the data source will remain the one you manually created.

8. What if you want to show multiple databases (in your report)?

You can create as many data sources as you need and they can each point to a different database on a different SQL Server.

If you are gathering diagnostic data, like we were doing in the demo, then you might want to consider a two step approach. The first step would be to have an SSIS package or a PowerShell script retrieve the diagnostic data from each server on a schedule and save the data to a central database. Then you can have the report pull the diagnostic data from that central database.

9. Can hidden parameters have values passed to them, for example: can a hidden parameter list containing state names have “CA” passed to it when the report is opened?

Yes. That would be done in the parameter properties on the report in the Report Manager, from code, or from another report. You can also create Linked Reports in the Report Manager and change the values of the hidden parameters.

10. Is there any difference between previewing the report than just running it by r-clicking on the report?

Not really.

11. Can you set border style in your template? So it’s not there at all?

Yes. If you were to save a new tablix in the template with the borders set to None for each row. Then you would copy that tablix for each tablix you need. Unfortunately you can’t modify the actual tools in the toolbox.

12. Any strategy to fine tune multiple drop down option/filter in SSRS report.

Yes.

1. Make sure that the Queries that are populating the drop down lists are FAST.

2. If the drop down lists are filtering each other, known as cascading parameters, then have them filter within the report, instead of making a round trip back to SQL Server for the filtering. This would be done by applying the filter to the 2nd parameter in the filter property instead of attaching it to the parameter property.

3. Make sure that the predicates of each of the queries and the final data set have proper indexes.

4. If the queries that the drop down lists are using are really slow due to too many JOINs, then consider using an SSIS package to create a static table that is updated every X minutes/hours with the latest data. Then use that table for the parameter lists.

13. This is not the question you are looking for. Move along. Move along.

14. How to display a message in the report if the dataset doesn’t return any records ?

This is an excellent question and the answer is not used enough.

Set the NoRowsMessage property on the tablix (Table/Matrix/List) control. You can get to it through the property window. The value of this property is displayed when there is no data to show. The value can even be an expression.

15. How to get a big report to limit to 4000 records but well distributed in terms of days in a month?

I would love to have more information on why you have this requirement. It is an interesting one. Here is what you can do. Note: It will slow the query down though, so make sure you have good indexes on the predicates.

1. I have 1 million rows of random dates and numbers. This happens to be a very narrow table.

2. I use the ROW_NUMBER() function. It will give a sequential number to each row based on the partition. I partitioned the data based on Year, Month, Day. If your date field does not have time, then you can partition based on the date field. Within each partition, the data is sorted by Date then TestDataID (the PK). This will help guarantee the same order each time.

3. I determined how many days were in the range of dates I’m selecting from, divided 4000 by that number, and select only those row number values per date. This will provide an even distribution across days.

4. Since you can’t guarantee that the number of days will divide evenly into 4000, you need to either have less than 4000 rows returned, or more than 4000 returned by adding 1 to the number created in step 3.

SELECT DATEDIFF(DAY,@StartDate, @EndDate) AS NumberOfDays;
WITH cte_ranking
AS
(
SELECT TOP 100 PERCENT
TestDataID
,SomeDate
,SomeTextNumber AS SomeNumber
,ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY dateyear, datemonth, dateday ORDER BY datevalue, TestDataID) AS RN
FROM
DemoProgramming.dbo.TestData AS td
JOIN dbo.DimDate AS dd ON td.SomeDate = dd.DateValue
WHERE
td.SomeDate >= @StartDate
AND td.SomeDate <= @EndDate
ORDER BY datevalue
)
SELECT
cte.TestDataID
,cte.SomeDate
,cte.SomeNumber
FROM
cte_ranking AS cte
WHERE
cte.RN <= (4000/DATEDIFF(DAY,@StartDate, @EndDate)) + 1;

–Returned 4038 rows

[\SQL]

16. With subscriptions is it possible to make one subscription to use the current fiscal month to generate report vs. creating 12 subscriptions for each fiscal month?

Unfortunately no. You can do it based on calendar months, but not based on fiscal months where the first day of the fiscal month may not be the 1st day of the calendar month. I would love to see this feature. If this is a must have requirement, then email me and we can talk about some “creative” solutions.

17. What are the different security roles on report server side?

The SSRS development team were kind enough to add the definitions on the security screen.

18. Can you append the date/time to the file name that gets created with a subscription that saves to a fileshare?

Yes. Add the @ExecutionTime parameter to the filename.

19. How do you set-up the email option for the subscription?

First your Report Manager needs to be setup to send email. I usually have my Sys Admin help me with that.

After that, it’s a matter of populating fields (and there was much rejoicing.)

If you use the standard subscription, then the setup screen will look like figure A below. If you are creating a data driven subscription, then the setup screen will look like figure B below. Either way, you need to set all the properties. Then select a schedule for the emails to go out on.

I would highly suggest using Active Directory groups for the To list. This make is easier to manage when people change jobs. You may also want the email to go to yourself for a few days or weeks to make sure it is going out as predicted.

figure A

figure B

Thanks for all the fish

I wanted to give a shout out to Glenn Berry for letting me use his diagnostic queries for my demos. You can find the full diagnostic script, per SQL Version here on Glenn’s website.

On Tuesday, March 3rd, 2015, I had the privilege of speaking for Pragmatic Works. For the month of March, they are highlighting Women in Tech and have the whole month lined up with female speakers on each Tuesday and Thursday. I was the first in the line up for the month and it ended up being my largest audience to date. There were 419 people listening in. I even saw some comments about there being others who couldn’t make it. Wow

Thanks to everyone who came to listen to my session. While I couldn’t hear anyone, I enjoyed reading the questions and comments that were sent to me afterwards, and let me tell you there were quite a few. Below you can find the answers to SECOND HALF of the questions that were asked. The first half of the questions can be found here.

Questions Answered

1. How do you make the report to see test database or production db or development db?

This is done by changing the data source properties. Say I have a database server called Monkey. I would create a shared data source called Monkey that each of the reports would share. On the Development SSRS Server, I would have the Monkey data source point to the development database. On the QA server, I would have the Monkey data source point to the QA database. And on the Production server, I would have the Monkey data source point to the production database. Each time the report is loaded into the new environment, it would automatically point to the correct database server.

If you are in a situation, where environments have to share a SSRS report manager (and I’m sorry if you are in that situation), then I would create a separate parent folder for each environment. For instance a parent folder called Development and a parent folder called QA. In each of these parent folders, I would create a folder for all your shared data sources for that environment. Each parent folder would have its own copy of the report and its own shared data source called Monkey pointing to the correct database.

2. When copyrighting, does your company need to be registered with the copyright office?

The answer to this question should come from your legal department. Through my experience, the answer is no. Copyright laws are different than patent laws. When I was an artist, the fact I made the artwork first, meant I owned the copyright. Even in another country.

3. Query for getting reports that have not been run.

SELECT
c.ItemID
,c.Path
,c.Name
FROM
ReportServer.dbo.Catalog AS c
LEFT JOIN [ReportServer].[dbo].[ExecutionLog3] AS e ON c.[Path] = e.ItemPath
WHERE
e.ItemPath IS NULL
AND Path NOT LIKE '/Decommisioned Reports%' --Ignore folders I don't care about.
AND c.Type NOT IN (1, 5, 8) -- Ignore Folders, Data Sources, and Data Sets
ORDER BY
c.Path
,c.Name

4. How did you add the template file in Visual studio?

For SSRS 2012, I put the RDL, RSD, and RDS files in the following directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\ ProjectItems\ReportProject. The directory will be different for 2008 and 2014.

5. What if a company doesn’t have any procedure for gathering requirements and creating/keeping documentation?

This puts you in the driver position. I would suggest meeting with your manager to discuss the benefits of having requirements documentation and a standard way of maintaining the documentation. I would then outline a plan for starting on this new path. I would start with new reports, and slowly add in existing reports as they get modified.

Awesome quote from one of the attendees:I ask “what the decision is going to be taken with the data from the report”

6. How do you know the width to fit on landscape and portrait nicely?

I like half inch margins. So I subtract the two half inch margins from the width of the landscape or portrait paper. That becomes the width of the base report. I also set the half inch margins in the Margin property of the Report.

7. Could you show an example of a Tracking Number?

Sure! If I were using an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of my reports, I would number all my reports starting with 1000. (Why 1000? I like starting with 4 digits. No other reason.) If I were using a product like Team Foundation Server (TFS), then I would have each report represented by a work item. In either case, say the report named National Sales Revenue was represented by the number 1500. 1500 would always represent the report National Sales Revenue.

The first time this report is successfully published to production, it would be given a “release number” of 00. So the tracking number would look like 01500.00. After modifications were made to the report and republished to production, it would get a new release number of 01. The new tracking number would look like 01500.01.

In the location where I store all my documents for my reports, the report National Sales Revenue, will be stored under the number 01500. I usually add the name of the report to the folder name so that it looks something like 01500 – National Sales Revenue. This allows for two things. One, you can create the folder before you have a permanent title. (The temporary folder name would just be 01500.) Two, if the title changes later for some reason, you don’t lose the documentation location. It’s still under 01500.

8. What methodology do you use to create the Tracking Number or is it automatically generated from TFS?

When I’m using TFS, it is automatically generated for me. TFS uses a single sequential string of numbers across all the work item types (task, bug, custom work item, etc.), so you may have a report with number 1500, and then the next report will be number 1583. I do put a leading zero or two in front of the number so that when it goes two 5 digits, my folders are still in the correct order.

10. If a report is setup as a subscription, how can I tell if the subscribers are actually using/accessing the report?

This is an excellent question. The ReportServer Database will tell us which reports were executed through a subscription, but it cannot tell us if they were used. I have some ideas on ways to still capture the information, but they would require research and extra layers of complexity. If you want to hear about these ideas, send me an email.

Awesome idea from one of the attendees:Maybe we should add a “pixel tag” to the report so that hits a web server which can track access.

11. This is not the question you are looking for. Move along. Move along.

12. Is there any way to handle the row hight dynamically in Excel output where include the merged cells? (Can grow does work with merged cells)

I don’t know a definitive answer to this question, but my inclination is to say no. Dynamically changing row height/width outside of the auto grow properties, is usually not possible. I have found ways around this by providing multiple layouts of columns/rows and hiding the ones I don’t want.

13. How can you use a business glossary to develop your label and be consistent across reports?

This question is a big one. The simple answer, is you need buy in from the business to make it happen and discipline from the entire team to make it successful. I would suggest you look into the topics for Data Governance, Business Semantics glossary, and Conceptual Data Modeling. These areas are what would help create and drive the business glossary from the very beginning, so that by the time you are ready to create a report, the terms already exist.

If you can’t get buy in yet, or ever, then I would suggest creating your own business glossary. Excel would work and is easily searchable. Make sure it is stored where your whole team can update it and use it.

14. Any major changes to SSRS 2014?

No. You can see the changes from version to version here. Just select the version you want to look at from the “other versions” drop down at the top of the article.

15. Can you tell what format they placed it in? PDf Excel

The Format Field in the ExecutionLog3 view will give you that information. Here is an example looking at the rendered format of a subscription.

It took me a couple of years. I started by tracking down all the reports and entering them in an Excel spreadsheet. My manager wanted a more permanent solution that could be shared with others, so I was given time to create a custom Report Work Item in TFS. I then moved the whole catalog there and decommissioned the Excel based catalog.

For the requirements and design document, I slowly saw a pattern of questions that I kept asking, so I designed a requirements document and tweaked it over time.

For my report templates, I looked at existing reports. I took the consistent layouts I found, filled in some things I felt were missing like showing the parameters, and created the templates. They stayed pretty consistent over the years.

17. Is there a way to find out the limit of data export to Excel? We used to have reports which we can view, but time out when exporting to Excel. The limit is per size of other Excel or number of rows?

The limit will be how long it takes to do the export. There is a time limit and it if the export is not accomplished in that time frame, then it will time out. This can be changed with settings in the Report Manager. As far as the amount of data Excel can take, I would Google that, since different versions have different limits.

18. What’s better to use stored procedure or embedded SQL query and how to determine that?

This is an excellent question. This is also a highly debatable discussion, so this is my stance on the topic.

I prefer stored procedures for the following reasons:

Stored procedures are easier to modify when they need to be optimized. It is easier to track down a stored procedure in the cache plan than an inline SQL Statement in a report. You also only need to deploy the updated stored procedure back to production, not the report.

Dynamic queries are more likely to be classified as an “Adhoc query” by SQL Server. Depending how your SQL Server properties are set, the Execution Plan may never be kept in the cache, which means you will always have the overhead of creating the best Execution Plan.

On the reverse, if your SQL Server properties are set to handle Adhoc queries, then you can cause unnecessary bloating in your cache plan since every embedded query with different parameter values will be seen as a different query. That is not true of Stored Procedures….unless they have dynamic SQL inside them.

19. Would you recommend some sort of standards for Data Source Names?

I’m in favor of standards for everything. It satisfies my OCD needs. I keep all my data sources in one folder called either “Data Sources” or “DataSources”, depending if you like spaces in names. For the names, my data source names are the same name as the database they represent. If you have multiple databases with the same name in your production environment, then I would suggest adding the server name to the data source name. You want the Data Source names to represent what they are pointing to.

Name data sets the same way. I use the name of the stored procedure as the name of the data set. If you have the same stored procedure name in different Schemas, then I would include the Schema name in the data set name.

20. How to deploy the SSRS reports using TFS auto build?

I haven’t had the pleasure of using this feature. I unfortunately had to write a deployment document so that the report(s) could be deployed manually.

21. Can you mention the bug again with 2008 R2 with concatenated fields in excel prints?

Sure. In the footer of the report, I had a single textbox that had multiple fields in it. When the report was exported as an Excel document, the textbox was created in the footer of the Excel document, but the font size had been increased to 72 PT font. This bug did not occur on all of our servers.

22. All these best practices are good. I would like to see some more of practical on how to create hierarchies and links and other stuff, maybe in next webinar.

Please, please, please email me what you would like to see in sessions. I am always looking for ideas.

Спасибо

Thanks for all the fish

Thanks go out to everyone who attended the presentation and for the patience of those who waited two weeks for me to answer the second half of the questions.

This is me sitting at a local café with my oldest daughter while I write, she studies, and we both drink flat white coffee. (This week she was working on an essay about Frankenstein and an exegetical essay for another class. I’ll stick to SQL and SSRS.)

This past Tuesday, March 3rd, 2015, I had the privilege of speaking for Pragmatic Works. For the month of March, they are highlighting Women in Tech and have the whole month lined up with female speakers on each Tuesday and Thursday. I was the first in the line up for the month and it ended up being my largest audience to date. There were 419 people listening in. I even saw some comments about there being others who couldn’t make it. Wow

Thanks to everyone who came to listen to my session. While I couldn’t hear anyone, I enjoyed reading the questions and comments that were sent to me afterwards, and let me tell you there were quite a few. Below you can find the answers to HALF the questions that were asked. The other half of the questions will be answered next weekend.

Questions Answered

1. The number one question that was asked was: Will your documents, like your requirements document, be available?

Yes! You can find all the assets to the presentation under the Resources\Presentation menu on my website. I list all my presentation on this page, so just scroll to the correct presentation title.

I did get some comments about my SSRS templates missing. That has been fixed. Here are the three separate downloads:

If you missed the presentation, don’t worry. Pragmatic Works will be adding it to their catalog of past presentations here.

2. Hey, can you please share us that sample database?

I’m not sure which sample database this was pertaining to. Please email me.

3. Would you give that mock up tool again?

It’s called Balsamiq. They are a wonderful company with a great user support forum. You can find tons of templates on their website and get your feet wet with a trial version.

4. Do you have any scripting that can be used to see what subscriptions are set up using all the various parameters?

I broke this question up into two questions because I wasn’t clear if you wanted existing subscriptions or executed subscriptions.

Executed

The ExecutionLog3 view in the report server database will have this information for you. You can filter the data on the RequestType field to show you only subscriptions. The Format field will tell you how it was rendered and the Parameters field will tell you what all the parameters were set too. The down side, is they use special escape characters, so you’ll have to decipher it.

For existing subscriptions, you can look in the Subscriptions table in the ReportServer database. This lists the subscriptions that are set up, how they will be rendered, and the parameter values that will be used as well as other information.

5. Is there is way to bulk change the owner of a subscription? We have people leave and then when their account is deleted, the subscriptions stop working.

I’ve been asked this before. The information is stored in the ReportServer database, but I am always cautious about directly modifying this database. So , if you change it, then test it heavily in development before applying the changes to production.

To help with this problem in the future, I would recommend a new standard. All subscriptions should be directed to Active Directory distribution lists. Even if the distribution list has only one person in it. I try to use existing distribution lists, but when I can’t, then I work with the Active Directory Admin (or whoever wears that hat). You could make a distribution list for a specific title, position, or category of people. I also made sure the description on the distribution list was filled out and included something like, “Do not delete this distribution list. It is used for subscriptions.”

6. What tool do you use for your report catalog?

There are several ways to create a report catalog. I started with an Excel document. After I outgrew that, I ended up creating a custom work item in TFS (Team Foundation Server). This allowed me to catalog the report, keep track of the workflow as the report went through its life cycle, and associate work items and bugs to the report.

7. Don’t you think that its better to get the Requirements and have them sign off on That ?? Prior to a Mock Up ?

Yes, it would save us some work too. Unfortunately, I found that the end users have a hard time verbalizing what they actually want. I find that the changes they request after seeing the mock-ups are not normally based on scope creep, but on the way they verbalized their needs when they initially gave them. This can be due to them not understanding what they really want, to them, assuming we know their data as well as they do. By creating the mockup, they have something tangible to look at. It’s analogous to telling a realtor that you want a three bedroom house, but the first one they show you is not what you were looking for. Now that you’ve seen the house, you can better articulate what you really want in a house.

8. Did you discuss the data quality requirements with your customers?

This is a very good question, and a delicate one. Some customers are very glad you bring this question up, and some customers assume all the data is accurate and will become concerned with past reports if they think the data is “dirty”.

Here are some scenarios and how I handled them.

I was replacing an existing report that had bad data. This is an example of a delicate situation. My manager ended up coming with me to the meeting and backing me up. I showed samples of raw data under both reports and explained why the data was inaccurate before. Always save the explanation and data in an easy to locate place because they will be back asking again why a previous report is so different than a current report.

I had to aggregate data based on key phrases in a text field. This is an example where the customer is expecting to have a dialog about the quality of the data found. I spent some time looking at the raw data that did not match her phrases exactly and provided recommendations on additional phrases.

One of the requirements I was given for a report was based on ranges of numbers. For this report, I approached my client about the data I found that did not fall into the ranges he was expecting. In this case, it uncovered the need to validate the data when it was entered, so the client was grateful.

The bottom line is, be careful how and to whom you bring this question up to. It is a very important question and should always be addressed. It just may need to be addressed by your team instead of with the client, directly with the client, or in a very subtle manner with the client.

9. How do you place the Tablix color palette in the template form? And, could you provide, in your blog, info about Microsoft’s suggested methods of maintaining tracking info.

Below are the steps for creating a “color palette” on a new template. For your second question, I don’t know if there is an article from Microsoft for best practices on tracking info. In next weeks post, I have examples of how I did it.

Steps for adding your own color palette to a template

Add a table control (Tablix) to the body of a new report.

Remove the header row.

Make sure there is a column for each color in your color palate.

Make the width of each cell 0.2 in.

Change the background property of each cell to the name or hexadecimal value of your colors.

DeGraeve.com is a really cool website that can be used to create a color palette from an image.

Awesome quote from one of the attendees:A formal report request process gives the requestor an opportunity to think closely about what is really wanted. Does not force it to happen, but increases the likelihood that a good and complete request will be done.

10. What do you use for Version Control?

I have used both Team Foundation Server (TFS) by Microsoft and Subversion, which is an open source product. There are a few versions of Subversion out there. I used the Tortoise version.

For maintaining my SQL source code easily, I also use Redgate’s SQL Source Control product. It’s like a bridge between your repository (TFS, Subversion, etc.) and SSMS. I am happy to talk to anyone on Redgate’s products. Just send me an email. (No, I don’t work for them. I’m just addicted to their products.)

11.Is it better to use Visual Studios of Report Builder?

Better is not the word I would use. More Powerful is the adjective I would use. Report Builder only has a subset of features that you have in Visual Studio. It was designed to empower “power users” and to provide “self service BI solutions”. If you are designing reports all the time, I would highly recommend using Visual Studio. To see the power of what you can do in Visual Studio, take a look at my Scalable SSRS Reports Achieved Through the Powerful Tablix. It’s recorded on Pragmatic Works website.

Here’s some additional terminology for you with regards to the different versions of Visual Studio. The version that comes with SQL Server is all that you need to design reports. For SQL Server 2012 and 2014 it’s called SQL Server Data Tools and commonly referred to as SSDT. For SQL Server 2008 and 2008R2 it was called Business Intelligence Development Studio and commonly referred to as BIDS.

12. What’s the major difference of standalone SSRS and the SSRS on SharePoint server?

I have never worked with the SharePoint version of SSRS. From what I know, the major difference is how the metadata for the management of the reports is stored in SQL Server. The SharePoint tables are used instead of the ReportServer database. I don’t think the creation of the reports is any different.

13. Can excel templates be imported or easily developed so that if I export to excel it looks like the data came from excel?

I’m not aware of the ability to bring in an Excel templates as an SSRS template. If the user exports the report using the Excel render type instead of the CSV render type, then the report should look like it came from Excel. You might need to email me an image of what you are trying to accomplish for me to answer this question better.

Next weekend I will answer the rest of the questions from this presentation.

Thanks for all the fish

Thanks go out to Liz Hamilton at Pragmatic Works for moderating my presentation. She is wonderful to work with and I loved the movie trivia that she did prior to the presentation.

This past Tuesday, Oct 8th, 2014, I had the privilege of speaking for the DBA Fundamentals Virtual PASS Chapter. It was my biggest audience to date and the fourth biggest audience for the user group to date. There were 374 people listening in, and they weren’t all from the US. I was thrilled to see that I had at least one person listening in from the UK.

Since there were so many people on line, I couldn’t answer all the question…thus my post today. You can download the slide deck, demos, and my sample database. (All my presentations eventually find there way to my resources page, here.)

I will post the link to the presentation on this page when it becomes available.

Questions Answered

1. What is the name of the Red Gate tool for source control you mentioned?

Red Gate’s tool is called SQL Source Control. It’s like a bridge between your source control repository and SSMS or Visual Studio. They have a trial version that you can download here

2. What to do when you come into a team and there was no SQL coding standards before and we do not want to spend time re-writing everything?

I would first get buy in on why standards are important to have and outline the standards you want to use. Then I would slowly change the code. What I mean by this is, update the code as you make changes to it. For instance, you need to modify stored procedure XYZ, I would add the standards to only that stored procedure or even only the part of the stored procedure that you change.

3. What version of SSMS are you using?

In the presentation I was using SQL 2012, but all the concepts I covered applied to SQL 2005, 2008 and 2008 R2. Even the Template Browser and Template Parameters I covered are available in those versions (Talk about a well kept secret!). Note: If you need the sample database in SQL 2008 or SQL 2008R2, please let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

4. Can you give an example of commenting within a stored procedure?

Sure. You can comment using two different ways. You can comment at the end of a line using two dashes. You can also comment any where in the code using /* and */ to encompass the comment. This allows for comments to spend multiple lines.

When I’m adding comments about my changes, I will include the date, my name and brief comment. If I’m lucky to have a work item or bug tracker application to keep track of my work, then I’ll reference that number as well. Here is an example.

5. Is there any configuration for the Template Browser? Can it integrate with any source control?

No configuration for the Template Browser is needed. Here are the generic steps to integrate your Template Browser folder with your source control repository. Each Source Control repository will be different, but these are the general steps.

1. Open the location of the Template Browser. Since I’m using SQL 2012, I found mine here:

5. Connect the template browsers on your team’s computers the same way.

6. Let them know when you make changes to the templates so that they can do a “get latest” to download the changes to there computers.

6. Is there any kind of Freeware repository tool?

Yes, Subversion is an open source product and widely used repository tool. It has two parts. The first part is the repository which resides in a common location, usually on the network so that everyone can use it. Then each user needs to have a subversion client tool to connect to the repository. There are many different clients to pick from. I use Tortoise. Why? It was suggested to me and recommended by Red Gate. Since I was going to use SQL Source Control by Red Gate to connect to subversion, I decided to stick with there recommendation.

7. So, Row_Number() is non-deterministic?

Yes, that is correct.

8. Is there any difference or improvements in using a CAST vs CONVERT or vice versa?

There isn’t a different in using the two functions, in terms of performance. As Jeff Joy kindly pointed out, the difference between the two comes down to compliance.

Jeff Joy – CAST is ANSI – compliant while CONVERT is Microsoft-specific casting function that builds in additional formatting functionality. If you may ever need to convert to another platform you need to write code that is cross-platform compliant, use CAST.

The downside of writing all of your code to ANSI compliant standards, is you miss out on quite a few rich features that Microsoft has added to the SQL language. These rich features will help SQL statements perform faster or make your life easier.

9. Isn’t CTEs much better than subqueries? This is in regards to readability?

Yes CTEs (Common Table Expressions) are much easier to read. There are even patterns that can be accomplished with CTEs that can’t be accomplished with sub queries, but CTEs aren’t always faster. I have had a few queries I’ve had to re-write with sub queries because I needed every millisecond of performance.

10. Can I see the trace options selected?

Yes, here are the events I captured. I also isolated the database, to the demo database.

11. Is there a standards document about T-SQL Formatting?

I don’t have one I can give you. I can create a template for you if you would like. Just send me an email.

12. Can you e-mail that URL to us?

I’m not sure which URLs this is referring to, so I’ve listed the URLs that were mentioned in my presentation.

Comparing CTE and APPLY is like comparing apples and oranges. They are two different things. A CTE provides you the ability to create a query to be used within another query. APPLY is an operator like INNER JOIN, but it is specifically used to join table functions (in line and multi line) as well as sub queries and CTEs.

14. On the comparison of temporary, table variables, and materialized tables…Why was the second execution plan eligible for auto-parameterization and the others were not?

This will take a little bit of investigation since I don’t know off the top of my head. I will post this one in the next week or so.

15. What is the proper way to use DISTINCT with lots of columns in the SELECT without duplicate records? (Per our SDLC, avoiding using DISTINCT with lots of columns.)

The DISTINCT operator causes a SORT in the execution plan which is usually a very costly operator. Unfortunately sometimes you can’t avoid it. One thing that you can do, is see if there are other ways to filter the data so that there aren’t duplicate records. For example maybe there is a column that marks the latest record as active. You could filter on that field to provide uniqueness across the rest of the fields. Another example would be joining to another table that will help reduce the records, but not alter the data you need to return.

IMHO, your SDLC is trying to avoid unnecessary DISTINCT operators in the code. I had added that same requirements to my SDLC document when DISTINCT was being abused. I later added the comment, “If you can prove the need for the DISTINCT operator, then the use of DISINCT will be approved.”

16. About predicate and especially LIKE, we know that to put predicate more efficient, we shouldn’t start with a wildcard, but if we need to return data that end by defining string, it exists a way to improve that?

See # 17 below.

17. REVERSE string?

I wanted to answer 16 and 17 together. #18 is related, but I answered it separately. While all the string functions are deterministic, the particular pattern that needs to be implemented (looking at the end of string), does not allow it’s self to an efficient execution plan. This has to do with how indexes are built. The keys in the index are stored sorted. This means that finding records can only be efficient when looking from left to right, not right to left when comparing strings. You can see this by running the following sample on my demo database I provided.

I created an index on the field we are looking at, then I tried various techniques to get the last three characters. All three execution plans show an Index Scan.

USE DemoProgramming
GO
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.indexes WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.TestData') AND name = N'IX_TestData_SomeDateText')
DROP INDEX IX_TestData_SomeDateText ON dbo.TestData WITH ( ONLINE = OFF )
GO
CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_TestData_SomeDateText ON dbo.TestData
(
SomeDateText ASC
)
SELECT
SomeDateText
FROM
dbo.TestData AS td
WHERE
td.SomeDateText LIKE '%-09'
SELECT
SomeDateText
FROM
dbo.TestData AS td
WHERE
REVERSE(SomeDateText) LIKE '90-%'
SELECT
SomeDateText
FROM
dbo.TestData AS td
WHERE
LEFT(REVERSE(SomeDateText),3) = '90-'

When you run this sample, you do get an Index seek.

SELECT
SomeDateText
FROM
dbo.TestData AS td
WHERE
SomeDateText LIKE '2004%'

With all that said, if a particular column is constantly being split into separate parts to be searched, then I would consider storing those separate parts in fields in the database. That way they can be indexed and improve performance.

18. Full Text index vs Like?

I have not had the opportunity to use or even investigate Full Text indexes, so I can’t comment on this at this time. (sorry)

19. Is it ok to manually create tables in the temp DB? Would that be the same as creating materialized tables, but will be wiped out after a DB server restart?

Temp tables and global temp tables are tables with in the TempDB. As far as creating materialized or permanent tables within in TempDB, that is not a good idea. TempDB can already be burdened by all the other queries that use temp tables, table variables, and worktables. It would be better to create materialized tables outside of the TempDB.

20. For the Template explorer…how do you share your templates to other users in SQL because when we create templates they seem to only be available to the user specifically that created them?

See Question #1.

21. What’s the best hosting solution for MSSQL server standard/enterprise?

This is outside the scope of this session and an area I don’t have a lot of experience with.

22. Does including Actual Execution plan also puts an overhead on the server?

No. The Actual Execution plan is what is created when a query is ran. The query itself can cause overhead, but not the plan. In fact, the engine allows a specific amount of time to find the best plan. If it can’t go through all the different possibilities, then it will do the best it can with the possibilities it ran through . You can see this in the execution plan. Click on the SELECT icon and look at the properties. For this query, it told me it found a “good enough plan”.

If you want to get the last execution plan that was generated for a query, then you can get it using sys.dm_exec_query_plan. See how to use this DMVhere.

Last but not least…

23. What’s your favorite whisky?

Well in the immortal words of Grant Fritchey…that depends. It depends on where I am, what I’m eating, and how many people I’m with. (I know, that is a weird one. But I find I can handle the smokier Scotchs when I’m around a group a friends, but not when I’m home relaxing.) Also, I drink all my whiskey neat.

So, since I don’t have one favorite, I’ll answer the question by country in the order of my preference.